Ex-boxer Ellett now helping to keep people fighting fit

Ex-boxer Lloyd Ellett now helping to keep people fighting fit

A FORMER Brighton boxing champion is trying to keep people fighting fit during the coronavirus pandemic.

Albion fan Lloyd Ellett used to pack out the Metropole Hotel on home shows after turning pro following a successful amateur career at Brighton and Hove ABC.

But the former WBO European welterweight title challenger uprooted to Mallorca two years ago with a record of 20 wins and three defeats after growing disillusioned with the politics in the fight game.

He has built up a business as a boxing-based personal training instructor and is now putting those skills to good use during lockdown on the Balearic Island with people tuning into his live Instagram posts each morning for a daily workout.

And his workouts could get a lot more viewers after Prime Minister Boris Johnson revealed tough new measures designed to keep the British public at home.

“Gyms are shut so it is helping people stay healthy and positive, which is important right now.”

Ellett reacted quickly when the island started moving closer to a lockdown and then the restrictions were brought in more than a week ago.

He told The Argus: “It went from nothing with coronavirus in China and Italy and then bang it was here.

“On the Wednesday I decided to stop doing padwork with people and then on the Friday cancelled all my clients.

“On the Saturday the authorities announced they were putting the restrictions in from the Monday. It was two weeks initially and now they’ve announced an extra two weeks.

“I’m trying to do it all the way through - but it’s getting quite tiring now!”

Ellett is glad he can do his bit amid the global pandemic.

The former Chichester University graduate said: “I am getting a lot of people on Instagram, probably about 150 or so each day, and then I upload it to YouTube so people can watch it after and it gets a load of views on there too. It’s been good.

“People from Brighton and Mallorca follow it and then I get random people messaging me from America or parts of Spain telling me they are doing it.

“It’s all good for me here but the impact this is having on everyone’s business over the world is going to be massive.

“I am just thankful I don’t own a gym because it would be a nightmare.”

His career as a boxer under Scott Welch and also up in London has stood 33-year-old Ellett in good stead.

He added: “I was personal training in London and super busy before we moved out here.

“Once I got here I knew a couple of people and started training one of them and I just ended up getting super busy within a month.

“Last year a Spanish guy I am friendly with out here put on a couple of fitness retreats.

“I’ve had people come from London and all over Europe to do just a boxing camp and train, which has been good.

“I have used Instagram quite a lot and I’ve also done a lot of stuff online as I was too busy. It’s all boxing related.”

The former England amateur Ellett, who has a baby on the way with partner Jessica, had his last fight in November 2017 at a week’s notice but the seeds of moving on were already well rooted by then.

He revealed: “I’d always wanted to move away. In my last year of boxing I had started to have had enough of the political side of it.

“We were thinking of moving somewhere nice and my partner has family in Barcelona. Even before I had my last fight in the November I knew I was going to retire.

“That year I had been meant to fight in Brighton in May, and I had been really good in the gym.

“I had been training at the Peacock Gym in London and had felt really good but that fight got cancelled. I had been training for six months.

“I got on another show six weeks later and the show got cancelled a week before, and I was kind of done with it. But I was meant to fight on a Friday as I needed some activity as I’d only had one fight in 18 months.

“But the Monday before that I got offered a ten-rounder for the WBO European title by BoxNation against Stephen Danyo on a Monday night.

“It was a week’s notice but I was ready. He was a good boxer but he was not unbeatable. He has done well since but I lost on points and after that I was definitely done.”

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